My poor young former colleague just called me this evening and talked for an hour and a half about the problems at school. I feel heart-broken but there just isn't a thing I can do except be a good listener and reassure her that she is doing a good job. I miss the children so much, and she told me about a few that have gone off the rails and it's so sad. She said they brought my stapler into her classroom today, Sam the Stapler. I named him ages ago ;) and wrote his name on the front of it. Visitors always got to say hi to Sam! I explained to the teacher that Ali was always going to marry Sam, despite the slashiness of that statement and she laughed. "Oh, that's why the stapler stayed on Ali's desk all day then!" Near the end of the year, another child named my hole punch Meg. They apparently ran to fetch Meg today as well! But Oh, I feel so sad to hear how things are not going so well, so sad. It sounds like the Ministry is really letting the school run itself into the ground so it can close it without any fuss, because there just won't be enough children or parents to be heard. They have less than fifty children now.

Today I started painting the kitchen walls. Finn had to stay home because he had an eye infection - his white was totally red! Christy had the same sort of thing so I collected her at lunchtime. No peace for me today!

This evening I had a glass of wine with three friends, two sisters and our friend whose husband has done a runner. We are trying so hard to support her since her husband left her and shacked up with another woman. Our friend is not coping well at all. She hasn't found the anger yet, and is desperately unhappy and frightened. It's awful to think anyone could be so callous and such a bastard. I had to explain it all to our soccer coach, because said bastard was our home ref last year and I didn't want him calling the house. It's so hard, to feel so abandoned, cheated, lost, at a time in your life when the children are just getting a bit independent and you could enjoy your marriage a bit more... grrr. I know marriages fall apart, and sometimes that is a good thing, but for my friend, this came out of the blue and she did not want it, no way.

And OMG the house just around the corner, that belongs to a friend of ours, sold today for $NZ820,000!!! It wasn't even a really great house and doesn't even have a garage, although it has a great teenage games and music room out the back. Imagine what we could get here LOL! That is a ridiculous price for our area, totally ridiculous. Houses round here should cost about 4-500,000, not a whole lot more than that. No way.

Comments

It must be hard to hear about all that is happening at school now without you, but the way things are must convince you that you made a wise decision to leave when you did... really sad though - especially for the children.

I hope Finn and Christy are better soon, eye infections are really annoying

- really sad though - especially for the children.I decided at Mass today (after thinking about it a bit yesterday) that I might just go on a campaign for the school later this afternoon... watch this space!

Christy is good now but Finn still has a very red eye - I think it'll go soon though. Thanks.

Yeah, I think my young teacher friend needs to talk it all out, but she can't do that at school because she is a young Samoan, and the Samoan way is not to make waves in public, especially if you are not the oldest there. Their way of showing disappoval is silence. It makes it tricky at mixed meetings. Say you wanted a group to come and do something for the school. A western way would be to present the plan at a meeting and say, 'any objections?' The heavy silence from the Samoans would mean 'we are not happy' but the westerners would assume the silence meant 'no objections'! Later, the westerners would say, 'why didn't you come? You didn't object at the meeting! You must be just lazy.'